>> Monday, November 30, 2009

at least until Michael White goes moderately Over The Top in his latest rambling, expansive Guardian piece on Friday. While LGM readers know that I am highly critical of the Wingnut approach to democracy and debate, and I don't consider it healthy at all, I'm not about to start drawing comparisons to Ft. Sumter in 1861.

While White may largely be correct here:

It is the scale of the irrational, emotional and, dare I add, ignorant, reaction his presidency has unleashed on the American right, some of it understandable in a fast-changing and confusing world, much of it ugly and increasingly violent in tone.

But a latecomer here:

Friends keep saying: "It's changed since you lived there, Mike."

White lived in the US from 1984 to 1988, so, um, duh, of course it's changed. That's a generation. I'm willing to bet that Britain has changed since 1988 as well.

I interpret the present reaction of the right not all that differently from that unleashed by Bill Clinton. Since Reagan, the right views the White House specifically, and governance in general, as a birthright. They're the only true Americans. Fortunately for the rest of us, most of them live in Real America. Therefore the current tone and tenor of debate from the right doesn't surprise me in the least -- if anything they're more scared, because whereas Bill Clinton won with only 43% of the vote, Obama did significantly better. And, Obama's a Muslim Fascist-Communist as we all know, born, where was it? Kenya? Indonesia? That must scare the right as well.

To reiterate, unlike White I do not perceive this wave of wingnut lunacy any differently than the Clinton administration. This isn't new. (Of course, dare I say it, we know how that ended up). Furthermore, while the faults of the United States are legion, this is true of every democracy on the planet -- and hey, we didn't give the world, and the European Parliament, Nick Griffin, who somehow weaseled his way into representing the entire EUP at the Copenhagen climate change conference. His views on climate change are reassuringly similar to his views on race relations.

But perhaps I should have more time for White and his viewpoint: not only was he punched by Alastair Campbell, but he punched him back.